I was forced to buy some peco turnouts due to Atlas' inability to provide turnouts for the past year. Now I am having difficulty joining the Pecos to by Atlas code 83 flex track. What is the secret? Peco joiners won't fit on Atlas and Atlas joiners won't fit on Peco turnouts. Any help is greatly appreciated, I am at a work stoppage right now.
RicZ
Exand the Atlas joiners until the slide onto the Peco rail, your will also discover the rail is at different heights so your railhead won't match. I did this when I was forced to remove some problem Atlas turnouts with Peco. I lined the railhead and soldered all Atlas flex rails to the Peco turnouts. I still needed to do some fine adjusting with a file. As you have discovered Atlas and Peco rail do not match.
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RicZI was forced to buy some peco turnouts due to Atlas' inability to provide turnouts for the past year. Now I am having difficulty joining the Pecos to by Atlas code 83 flex track. What is the secret? Peco joiners won't fit on Atlas and Atlas joiners won't fit on Peco turnouts. Any help is greatly appreciated, I am at a work stoppage right now. RicZ
You make it sound like a bad thing. Most consider Peco better quality than Atlas and I would agree. I never had trouble joining Peco to Atlas using standard rail joiners.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
riogrande5761 RicZ I was forced to buy some peco turnouts due to Atlas' inability to provide turnouts for the past year. Now I am having difficulty joining the Pecos to by Atlas code 83 flex track. What is the secret? Peco joiners won't fit on Atlas and Atlas joiners won't fit on Peco turnouts. Any help is greatly appreciated, I am at a work stoppage right now. RicZ You make it sound like a bad thing. Most consider Peco better quality than Atlas and I would agree. I never had trouble joining Peco to Atlas using standard rail joiners.
RicZ I was forced to buy some peco turnouts due to Atlas' inability to provide turnouts for the past year. Now I am having difficulty joining the Pecos to by Atlas code 83 flex track. What is the secret? Peco joiners won't fit on Atlas and Atlas joiners won't fit on Peco turnouts. Any help is greatly appreciated, I am at a work stoppage right now. RicZ
Same here. I kind of chuckled when I read your comment that you were "forced" to buy Peco turnouts. For the longest time, I bought only Atlas turnouts, but I recently purchased twwo Peco turnouts and two Peco crossings to fit a special track configuration. I immediately became enamored with the quality and the operation of Peco turnouts. Atlas rail joiners work fine for me when joining Peco turnouts and crossings to Atlas flex track.
Rich
Alton Junction
When you have invested in over 60 turnouts from one manufacturer, it is rather disturbing to have to turn to a different brand, and then find out that there is a problem with the joining. Therefore, the question remains, is ther a secret to joining the two brands? Do I need to undercut the rails on the Pecos to gets the Atlas joiners to fit, etc?
Peco rail joiners will not fit Atlas track, but Atlas rail joiners will fit Peco track if you squeeze them slightly closed from the sides with a pair of pliers.
The Peco rail foot is slightly narrower than Atlas rail, which makes Peco rail joiners too narrow to fit over Atlas rail.
Many thanks, that was the answer I was looking for.
RicZWhen you have invested in over 60 turnouts from one manufacturer, it is rather disturbing to have to turn to a different brand, and then find out that there is a problem with the joining. Therefore, the question remains, is ther a secret to joining the two brands? Do I need to undercut the rails on the Pecos to gets the Atlas joiners to fit, etc? RicZ
As mentioned Atlas rail joiners made for their code 100 will work on other codes because they are a bit bigger and have some flexibility, they can be bent to fit etc.
I've got quite a few Atlas turnouts but when I built my last layout I ended up buying whatever I need to make it work. I needed some #8 Shinohara and Walthers curved turnouts, some #8 Walthers regular turnouts, and some Peco turnouts. I've mixed code 100 (staging) and code 83 mainline and code 70 yard. It was not a problem mixing all of these.
So don't be disturbed. There is nothing that can't be overcome by a little tweaking. Yeah, you may need to take Atlas rail joiners and expand them out a bit, no biggie. There really isn't a problem joining, only that you may have to make some adjusting. When I bought all this different track and tried to lay it all together, I didn't hardly miss a beat. No, it's not like sectional track from Bachmann or KATO, so you do need to be "handy" etc. Sometimes that means shimming to get rail of different height to mesh. What I did for joining code 100 to code 83 was cut a slot in the railjoiners top part to bend a step into them, so the bottoms of the rail can be uneven but the tops flush. Basically these are the kinds of things you may need to do but once you are used to it, it will be no big deal.
Peco code 75 turnouts mate well with Atlas code 83 flex IMO.
RicZ Many thanks, that was the answer I was looking for. RicZ
LOL, you had your answer with post #2, but your welcome anyways.
Geared Steam RicZ Many thanks, that was the answer I was looking for. RicZ LOL, you had your answer with post #2, but your welcome anyways.
Maybe, but cacole must have said it more elegantly.
Maybe that is why I had a problem. My Pecos are code 83, but thanks to all.
Right on riogrande5761!